A Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi (’16) in Adda
TRIUMPH 1360 A diasporic telephone memoir: Chief Dr PU Emezi as told to his daughter. by Akwaeke Emezi Read the rest of the memoir here: Triumph 1360
Cole Lavalais Interviewed in Full Stop Quarterly
An interview with Andrew Mitchell Davenport In her 1942 autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road, Zora Neale Hurston writes, “If you have received no clear-cut impression of what the Negro in America is like, then you are in the same place with me. There is no The Negro here. Our lives are so diversified, internal attitudes […]
Deesha Philyaw (’15) on Being a Yale English Major
From THE ESTABLISHMENT On The Unbearable Whiteness Of The Yale English Major On a sweltering morning in August 1989, I took an Amtrak train from my hometown in Jacksonville, Florida, to New Haven, Connecticut, to begin my freshman year at Yale. A first-generation black college student from a neighborhood where no one else I knew […]
Ngwah-Mbo Nkweti (’16) Appointed Resident at Hub City
Ngwah-Mbo Nkweti will join Hub City as Writer-In-Residence this Fall. A Cameroonian-American writer and English professor, her residency will run from September until December. Read the full press release here: Nana Nkweti at Hub City
Julia Brown (’13) Interview Andrea Lee for GULF COAST
(Note: KIMBILIO thanks Julia for her ongoing service to our community. Since 2014, she has graciously volunteered to prepare manuscript material for our retreat.) Andrea Lee writes the kind of dazzling, lyrical prose that delights with its boldness—over three acclaimed novels, a New York Times Notable short story collection, and many essays and articles in publications […]
The 2016 Caine Prize for African Writing
Congratulations to Kimbilio Fellows Lesley Arimah (’15) and Tope Folarin (’15) for being nominated for the 2016 Caine Prize. The Caine Prize for African Writing is awarded annually to an African writer of a short story published in English. Tope won this award previously in 2013. At a ceremony in London on July 4th, South […]
Cole Lavalais (’13, ’15) in JADED IBIS
For the Kimbilio panel at AWP ’16, Cole Lavalais (’13, ’15) presented these remarks on directionality in fiction: Several years ago during my first semester in graduate school, some of my classmates and I went out to a local watering hole after a rather tedious writing workshop. Which, by the way, was nothing new. I […]
Advice from the Vets
Returning Fellows Christi Cartwright (’13), Rosalyn Story (’13), and Andy Johnson (’14) will join the class of ’16 for the Annual Retreat in Taos. We asked our vets to offer some advice to our Newbie Kimbees. Christi Cartwright Says: Accept writing friendships and kindnesses from whomever/wherever they are given. Writing is a lonely venture and kindness helps […]
Deesha Philyaw (’15) Interviews Cole Lavalais (’13, ’15)
Cole Lavalais’s arresting debut novel, The Summer of the Cicadas, engages with a mother-daughter relationship, mental health, and first love, set on the campus of small black college in the South. The novel’s main character Viola (Vi) Moon is still emotionally fragile after a recent hospitalization at a mental health facility, but she’s also determined […]
Dennis Norris II Writing for AWSOME SPORTS PROJECT
Finding Michelle Kwan: A Black Boy’s Childhood on Ice By Dennis Norris II Long before it actually happened, I tried to tell the world that I was a figure skater. I tried on Saturday afternoons, back in the nineties when skating was on TV every weekend. I tried by pushing all the furniture to the edges […]
